1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to road ccnstruction equipment. In particular, the present invention relates to an improved device for on-site mixing of asphalt paving material.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the use of asphalt paving materials for roadways has become increasingly prevalent. Roadways formed with asphalt paving material provide a smooth driving surface and are relatively low maintenance, compared to other paving materials.
While relatively low maintenance, it is periodically necessary to resurface even asphalt roadways. One typical method for resurfacing asphalt roadways employs a known milling machine. This milling machine travels upon the asphalt roadway and literally tears up the roadway beneath it, breaking the roadway into pieces and gathering up these pieces. The pieces of asphalt roadway produced by the milling machine are fed out of a chute on the back end of the machine and are received in a series of dumptrucks.
The dumptrucks transport the asphalt roadway pieces to a recycling plant, where the pieces of roadway are crushed to the proper size and are combined with new asphaltic cement (asphalt) to produce asphalt paving material suitable to form a roadway. This asphalt paving material is then transported back to a roadway construction site where the roadway has been previously removed by the milling machine, where it is dispersed, rolled, etc. to produce an asphalt roadway.